Welcome to the Friday 5!
Every Friday I will highlight 5 things I am currently loving. This can be anything from habits that are currently serving me, clothes, apps, people I am currently loving, podcasts, food, mom hacks and everything in between!
What I am currently loving:
Ground Ginger In My Coffee
I love spice, but I especially love a spicy drink. I won’t drink a regular margarita, but if there is a jalapeno margarita on the menu, you better believe I’m ordering it. I had a ginger latte at a fancy coffee shop a few years ago and really had no idea what to expect. It was the smoothest drink with just the right amount of spice to finish it off. I just fell in love with the idea of a spicy coffee. I have no idea how they made it and honestly didn’t even look up any recipes on how to recreate at home. My coffee at home is already pretty high maintenance, I don’t need to add any more shenanigans in the morning. So, I figured I would just start adding ground ginger to give it that touch of spice. Y’all, it is so good! I fix my coffee as usual and then sprinkle a good amount in and stir before drinking. It’s so easy and just makes me happy. Also, ginger has tons of health benefits, so it makes me feel even better about that second cup most days. This is also how I make a pumpkin spice drink in the fall, just a little bit of pumpkin pie spice sprinkled on top and you are good to go!
Lavender Essential Oil
Anyone who knows anything about essential oils knows lavender is your most versatile oil. It is the Swiss army knife of oils. The benefits are endless. If you are not into essential oils, lavender is very popular and inexpensive, just make sure you are buying a quality therapeutic grade oil. So, let me tell you how I use it most. Lillian started telling me at bedtime almost every night that her tummy hurt. I felt pretty confident that there was not anything actually wrong with her, based on her behavior before I announced it was bedtime. I was pretty certain this was just a ploy to stay up a little longer. So, I told her I would rub her tummy for a few minutes while she laid in bed. She calmed down and stopped complaining almost instantly. Then a light bulb went off in my head, a special tummy cream before bed was just what she needed. So, I grabbed the first thing I could think of that was soothing, would help if her tummy was actually hurting and bonus, it would have a calming effect to help her go to sleep. So now, before bed anytime she or Stella tells me their tummy hurts, we go straight for the lavender oil, or “the tummy cream.” I just put two drops on their tummy, rub it in really well and then let them smell how good my hands smell. This has also come in super handy for those random middle of the night wake ups where they just “can’t sleep” any longer. I rub lavender on their tummy and it almost always does the trick.
J. Crew Moccasins
I told y’all all about my love/hate relationship with Ugg boots in a this post. But as the weather is getting warmer, I am starting to wear my favorite house shoes more and more. I feel like everyone calls this style of shoes something different, J.Crew refers to them as moccasins, I call them slippers. Whatever you want to call them, I love them. They are super comfy and keep my feet just the right temperature. I love that they have a rubber sole, so I can wear them outside if I need to grab the trashcan or run out to the car. I used to love to be barefoot in the house, but now I must have something on my feet in the house. I put these on almost immediately when I walk in the door and wear them till the moment I am going to leave. I have come dangerously close to getting in the car with these on more times than I care to admit. You can almost always find these on sale at J.Crew Factory and they come out with fun colors and patterns around the holidays too. I currently have a silver glitter pair that my sister in law gave me for Christmas a few years ago. I am on my second pair; these do start to stink over time and I think you can get a good 18 months of wear out of them. So, if you are able to grab them on sale, I think they are definitely worth the price.
Wet Brush
Last year, a group of my girlfriends got together for a “favorite things” party. We each brought all the other girls one of our favorite things as a gift. It was so fun to see what each of us was loving, we got wine, cookies, under eye cream, room spray, silk pillowcases and so much more. One of my favorite gifts from the party was this wet brush, given by one of my girlfriends with hair thicker than mine. I don’t know how I have lived 36 years with this thick hair and not known about this wet brush. Y’all, I have always brushed my wet hair with a hair pick! This brush is so much better! It brushes my wet hair out easier, without breaking the hair and helps absorb the water which significantly cuts down on drying time for me. I have even gotten a smaller version of this for the girls’ hair and I just love it. It’s such a simple fix that has made a great impact.
Journaling
This is something I have started doing recently and has been hugely helpful. I’ve heard people on podcasts and in interviews talk about journaling and the benefits for a while now but didn’t think I really needed it. However, I have had a few instances recently where something will really stress me out or worry me. I will replay a conversation in my head 100 times, I will manifest a dramatic encounter with someone I think is mad at me or just really overthink a small decision. Before Christmas last year, I was really struggling to let go of a conversation where a friend unknowingly hurt my feelings. She had no idea that she hurt my feelings and didn’t mean to, it was all about the way I took what she said and had WAY more to do with me than with what she actually said. I thought about confronting her, but I knew it would just be picking a fight over something so small and that my issue was more about me than the actual comment. So, after about a week of stewing over this interaction, I decided to try to journal about it. I felt like if I could write down what happened and why it hurt my feelings, I could let it go. If I got it out of my head on onto paper, that it would help. I set a timer for 20 minutes and started writing. Twenty uninterrupted minutes to write, with a pencil on paper, not typing. I wrote down everything I had been thinking about, but still had about 15 minutes left on the timer. I was determined to just sit there, think and write out what came to mind. It was so helpful to do that, I started writing out what was going on with me and why this comment was bothering me so much and how to handle my feelings about this. So now, anytime I am overthinking anything, I set a timer and get to writing. It’s unbelievable how the second the timer goes off, it’s gone. The worry and the overthinking are gone. I have written it all down and am able to let it go. And the answer I am looking for almost always comes out on the paper. So, if you are an overthinker like me, try journaling about it. It’ll help, I promise.
I hope you found something helpful or inspiring in this week’s Friday Five! I’ll have 5 new favorites to share with you next week, have an awesome weekend!
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